This 1966 Mustang is actually a Tesla with Full Self-Driving

Yaro Shcherbanyuk owns the quietest 1966 Ford Mustang you’ve ever heard.

That’s because under the hood of the cherry red Ford isn’t the original straight-six engine that came stock in the car — it’s a drivetrain from a 2024 Tesla Model 3.

“We’ve always sold components to people who do EV conversions,” Shcherbanyuk told Business Insider. “We figured, why don’t we try doing one?”

In the summer of 2022, Shcherbanyuk, the owner of Calimotive, a Tesla auto parts shop in the Sacramento area, found a white 1966 Mustang on sale on Facebook Marketplace.

The Mustang became a passion project that he worked on for about two years with his dad, Viktor, and brother Daniel.

In total, Shcherbanyuk said it cost around $40,000 to convert the Mustang into an EV — and yes, the car is equipped with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.

“It’s pretty smooth,” Shcherbanyuk said. “You feel like you’re in a Tesla.”

Here’s a look at the process of the conversion.

Tesla and Ford did not respond to a request for comment.

Shcherbanyuk picked up the ’66 Mustang for about $10,000

Shcherbanyuk said he didn’t have a specific car in mind for his conversion project. He and his brother only knew they wanted a classic car.

Shcherbanyuk found a ’66 Mustang located in Reno and had a local tow truck driver pick it up. The car looked better in photos than in person, Shcherbanyuk said.

“We probably overpaid a little bit for it, but it’s OK,” Shcherbanyuk said. “We weren’t sure what we were going to do. I just wanted something running and in OK condition.”

The Mustang seemed to be on its last legs.

“Realistically, this car would’ve went into the scrapyard in a few years,” he said.

The Calimotive owner did not have a detailed plan going into the project

There was no blueprint Shcherbanyuk could follow to convert the Mustang.

“We were just kind of going with the flow,” he said.

At first, his family considered fitting the Mustang with components from a Model S. But once he stripped down the car, Shcherbanyuk realized that the Model 3 battery was nearly a perfect fit.

He said he was able to use the entire chassis of the Model 3.

“It’s pretty much almost like the ‘skateboard’ of a Model 3, but cut into three sections to fit pretty much within that Mustang wheelbase,” he said.

Some fabrication was required to fit the Tesla components underneath the Mustang’s hood

Almost everything that can be found under the hood of the Tesla Model 3 can be found under the hood of the Mustang.

Fitting all the components involved cutting out parts of the Tesla Model 3 frame and welding them onto the Mustang.

“There were a lot of fabrications that needed to be done,” Shcherbanyuk said.

The Mustang’s interior is equipped with the Model 3’s 15-inch screen

The interior is a mix of the past and present.

The seats, taken from a Tesla, have heating and cooling, but the windows have to be rolled down with a hand crank.

Shcherbanyuk installed Tesla’s main media console in the car, which allowed him to control the vehicle’s functions through the 15-inch screen and receive regular firmware updates.

The original ’66 Mustang also did not have air conditioning. This one does.

Not all of the functions of the original Tesla are available in the Mustang.

For example, the air vents are manually adjusted and can’t be controlled with the touchscreen. Some firmware updates are also no longer available for the converted car.

“We have the Cybertruck steering wheel, and that thing never updates, although it does work perfectly fine,” Shcherbanyuk said.

The Mustang can be charged at ANY Tesla charging station

Shcherbanyuk installed the Tesla charging port in the same spot where the ’66 Mustang’s gas cap was originally located: at the rear of the car.

Shcherbanyuk said he has been able to get 258 watt-hours per mile, which would be just as efficient as, if not more than, a Tesla.

During a test drive on a Thursday afternoon, the Mustang-Tesla’s screen indicated that it had 194 miles of range left at around 80% battery.

This could be the only ’66 Mustang with Autopilot

The Mustang was retrofitted with Tesla’s cameras, which are critical for functions such as Sentry Mode and backing up, and for a key feature of every Tesla: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving.

Shcherbanyuk said he initially did not know if he’d attempt to install the components needed for the advanced driver-assistance system to work.

“How the Autopilot actually came to be was that we wanted to put the Model 3 power steering rack in there to have power steering,” he said. “And then once we threw that in there, we were like, ‘We might as well just start putting the cameras and everything else in there.'”

Getting FSD to work was one of the biggest challenges of the project

According to Shcherbanyuk, getting FSD fully operational required some experimentation with the placement and angling of the cameras on the Mustang’s fender.

Then he had to drive the car about 2,000 miles to get the cameras properly calibrated.

“Biggest challenge was probably getting Full Self-Driving to work,” he said. “It was just very, very time-consuming.”

The FSD on the Mustang still has some kinks that a normal Tesla wouldn’t experience.

During FSD’s “chill” mode, Shcherbanyuk encountered a few moments where he took control of the steering wheel.

The Mustang’s body is also longer than a Model 3. That means the FSD gets a bit closer to the car in front when the Mustang approaches a stop, Shcherbanyuk said.

For now, FSD also doesn’t operate at night due to technical issues with the headlights that Shcherbanyuk still needs to resolve.

In total, the project cost $40K and eight months of actual labor

The conversion project took nearly two years to finish, with eight months of actual labor put into the vehicle, Shcherbanyuk said.

Considering the $10,000 for the Mustang, about $15,000 for the Model 3 components, other replacement parts, and the paint job, Shcherbanyuk estimated the total cost of the conversion to be around $40,000.

There were a few car purists who thought Shcherbanyuk’s project a sacrilegious act against such an iconic American vehicle. Still, the Calimotive owner said most people have been enthusiastic about the conversion, and he’s gotten requests for conversions.Shcherbanyuk said he’d likely build another Mustang if he winds up selling this one.

“Most people don’t get how much labor is needed to do something like this,” he said.

The post This 1966 Mustang is actually a Tesla with Full Self-Driving appeared first on Business Insider.